Monday, September 26, 2011

Location of ALL Austin Moonlight Towers


Moonlight towers are one of the really fun things left from the end of the 19th century in Austin. There is a dark story behind their creation that you can read here. They have been decimated by construction permission, accidents and "accidents", as well as benign neglect. Expensive work was done not too long ago to refurbish them and prevent further failure for some time to come. I was trying to answer a question about an old photo tonight that showed a moonlight tower in the background. In my research, I found this map at the Austin History Center Web site. If you are interested in the topic, all current and past tower sites are marked on the map.

Comments welcomed.

Friday, September 9, 2011

Project Gutenberg Founder Dies


Wow. Somehow I didn't expect THIS fellow to disappear on us. The founder of Project Gutenberg died at 62. Whether or not you have a Kindle, you can download readable eBooks of many, many, many books written further back than a valid copyright goes. Pretty much any classic you can think of is available for free. It won't smell musty and won't take up space on your bookshelf, but there it will be, waiting on you to read it when you wish to do so. Worth a read...and a follow-up visit to see what you can snag to read....and a bookmark in your browser.

http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2011/09/project-gutenbergs-michael-hart-builder-of-public-libraries-tinkerer.html

Comments welcomed.

Thursday, September 1, 2011

A man for THIS season: Al Yankovic


Al Yankovic (some call him "Weird") is a man who is so intimately plugged in to our society that his lyrics sound like they were written for me...just for me to send out to those people like you hear about
==> RIGHT HERE <==

A maze within a maze within a photograph


Wow. If you have the time, read this:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jan/15/korea.photography?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487

Every revelation of a facet of life in N Korea strikes sparks of fear in my heart that one day others will not only wish to emulate that country's leaders, but successfully DO SO. Yow.

As a citizen of the world, there is not much other than instant annihilation that is quite so repugnant to me.

I'd love to see the book, though, in order to see the sheer, steely face of maximum repression...and still be safely a half world away.